{"id":24613,"date":"2018-03-07T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T13:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=24613"},"modified":"2018-03-07T08:29:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T13:29:00","slug":"op-ed-lets-debate-mascot-without-the-hecklers-veto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=24613","title":{"rendered":"Op\/Ed: Let’s debate mascot without the Heckler’s Veto"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott D. Cousins<\/strong>, Special to The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On January 18, 2018, Mike McGann of The Times<\/em> published an important editorial called \u201cUnionville mascot discussion a worthy topic.\u201d\u00a0 Mr. McGann and I agree on many things, particularly issues related to First Amendment principles and the importance of the Unionville community having a respectful debate regarding the Unionville High School mascot.\u00a0 I disagree, however, with Mr. McGann\u2019s view it is \u201cuni[n]formed to use any ethnic moniker for sports teams.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With respect to public, taxpayer funded schools, there are two important First Amendment principles at stake in this debate:\u00a0 free speech and the \u201checkler\u2019s veto.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, each side to the Unionville mascot debate has the right to express its views.\u00a0 Neither side, however, has the right to shut down opponents using the heckler\u2019s veto\u2014or, to some, \u201cno-platforming\u201d or \u201cderailing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

First Amendment principles of free speech become thorny when someone engages in offensive speech.\u00a0 For example, I find the protests at military funerals by the Westboro Baptist Church hateful.\u00a0 The U.S. Supreme Court, however, found such protests to be protected by the First Amendment.\u00a0 Nobody\u2019s feelings are hurt when I condemn these protests because surely there is consensus in the Unionville community that such acts are offensive.\u00a0 But because of the passions surrounding the Unionville mascot, feelings can be hurt when some argue that the school should maintain the Unionville mascot.\u00a0 To Mr. McGann, that viewpoint is uninformed.<\/p>\n

In response to that charge, opponents of changing the mascot can refuse to express their opinions for fear of being accused of being in desperate need of \u201can increased understanding of history.\u201d\u00a0 While remaining silent, of course, is not very satisfying, that is exactly how the heckler\u2019s veto works\u2014it shuts down diverse viewpoints.\u00a0 Alternatively, opponents can express their opinions, but risk hurting the feelings of others or offending proponents of change by \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d\u2014small, non-physical slights that are highly offensive to some.\u00a0 The clear implication is, of course, that anyone who opposes changing the mascot secretly hates Native Americans.\u00a0 And that is the heckler\u2019s veto.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in Matal v. Tam<\/em>, that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office improperly denied a request by four Asian-Americans to trademark the name of their band \u201cThe Slants.\u201d\u00a0 In that case, the National Congress of American Indians argued that \u201cNative American\u201d sports imagery \u201cperpetuates stereotypes in which American Indians are seen as participating in scalp taking, war-whooping, and expressing themselves in ungrammatical grunts, ughs and other tontoisms.\u201d\u00a0 Justice Alito rejected that argument (and others), writing:\u00a0 \u201cSpeech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express \u2018the thought that we hate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting that Native Americans have never been victimized.\u00a0 To the extent that Native Americans are being unfairly discriminated against today, I will stand and fight that discrimination.\u00a0 Simply claiming that Native Americans were victimized in the past, however, is unrelated to \u201cwhether \u2018Indians\u2019 is the best tribute\u201d regarding the Unionville mascot.<\/p>\n

The history of Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe goes back over 10,000 years.\u00a0 They were known as fierce warriors and diplomats.\u00a0 We honor the tribe by the Unionville mascot.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sure that we can all agree that the Unionville Snowflakes<\/em> doesn\u2019t have the same impact on opposing sports teams as the Unionville Indians<\/em>.\u00a0 We should study the proud history of Native Americans and understand why it\u2019s so important that the victimization of those great nations never happen again.<\/p>\n

By our very nature, Americans are typically polite, decent and respectful of opposing viewpoints.\u00a0 Social media, however, has changed the way that we debate each other.\u00a0 What we have today is one big tribal conflict (pun intended) with each side wrestling and preening for the moral high ground. \u00a0It\u2019s hard to have an open and honest debate when proponents of an issue believe that their opponents are people who lack good faith.\u00a0 To be sure, in order to have reasoned and candid debates about matters that impact all of us, we cannot be worried about offending another or improperly invoking the heckler\u2019s veto.\u00a0 Diverse viewpoints might be uncomfortable for one or both parties to a debate, but that\u2019s how to prompt further reflection, perhaps leading to the changing of minds.<\/p>\n

As an opponent of changing the Unionville mascot, my job is to try to convince Mr. McGann that my view has more merit than his view, without name-calling.\u00a0 His job is to convince me that his view has more merit than my view, without name-calling. \u00a0While we both feel passionately about our respective positions, we can have this debate without the insults.\u00a0 So, everyone toughen up\u2014let\u2019s have a public debate about the merits of the Unionville mascot that includes consideration of all diverse viewpoints.\u00a0 But let\u2019s do so respectfully, without the heckler\u2019s veto.<\/p>\n

Scott P. Cousins is a Director at the Bayard, P.A. law firm in Wilmington and a Unionville resident and parent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott D. Cousins, Special to The Times On January 18, 2018, Mike McGann of The Times published an important editorial called \u201cUnionville mascot discussion a worthy topic.\u201d\u00a0 Mr. McGann and I agree on many things, particularly issues related to First Amendment principles and the importance of the Unionville community having a respectful debate regarding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[9170,6269,10069,811],"class_list":["post-24613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-discussion","tag-featured","tag-mascot","tag-unionville-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24614,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24613\/revisions\/24614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}